bookclique Round-Up 2025

Headlines in 2025 sounded the alarm: reading for pleasure is precipitously declining, men are reading far less than women, and high school students are reading excerpts instead of whole books. People want to read more, but fewer make it a priority. Look, I’m a booklover, writer, former English teacher, and editor of this actual book review site, and I don’t read nearly as much as I should, as I want to. In my spare time, I’m running errands; I’m scrolling through reels of adopted pit bulls and aspirational cashmere sweaters. I’m despair-reading the news; I’m binge-watching Claire Daines emoting or Texan wives misbehaving. I’m not here to scold. Well, with the exception of schools teaching bits and pieces of books; to them I say: WTF? Students will rise the challenge of reading entire books. It will make them better for it. Reading makes you smarter, more empathetic, calmer, and now, some nerds have proven that reading extends your life. Here at bookclique, we take your health very seriously. We give a fuck about an Oxford comma. We want to help you help yourself.

My impressive stable of thoroughbred reviewers includes published writers, beloved teachers, former Heads of School, journalists, and red-wine lovers. Shout out to them for their dedication to recommending literary fiction, memoir, essays, poetry, romances, young adult fiction, the occasional children’s books, and one novella about a scientist whose consciousness is uploaded into the brain of a re-constituted wooly mammoth. My respect for their brilliant writing and awe at the breadth of their reading variety are ongoing, and my gratitude for their unpaid labor is wooly-mammoth-sized. Thank you, bookclique reviewers, you magnificent posse, you.

In 2025, we orbited space, we confronted climate change, we raged against the censorship of books, we uncovered secrets in the Ojibwe community and cranked up an indie playlist. We shivered off the coast of Wales in 1938, we speculated how much our given names shape us, we wept over a book of letters, we fell in love with an alien just trying to make sense of this world. We empathized with #boymoms, we time traveled, we met a young Muslim comedian and a young Muslim poet. We didn’t write about romances only on Valentine’s day, though we did also write about romances on Valentine’s Day. We reviewed books that went on to become prize winners, prize finalists, best-of-lists regulars, and reader favorites. And we had wooly mammoths.

So thank you, bookclique subscribers, for being an integral part of our bookish community. We appreciate you, we love you, and we have a good book to recommend to you.

BoyMom: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity by Ruth Whippman

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Sandwich by Catherine Newman

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

Post-Valentine’s Day Romance Roundup

Darkly by Marisha Pessl

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash

Mothers and Other Fictional Characters by Nicole Graev Lipson

Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino

Unshrunk: The Story of Psychiatric Treatment Resistance by Laura Delano